


A Pirate I Was Meant To Be?

by FleaBee



Category: Monkey Island
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:59:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9083272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: Guybrush was always sure of two things, his name and what he wanted to be. After his memories of his past before waking up on Melee Island start coming back, he is no longer sure if either of those facts are true.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Beta Read by VStarTraveler

Elaine jumped up as she heard the shatter of the dinner set she'd received from a merchant family who were interested in trading within the tri-island area. The family wanted to be guaranteed safe passage from the pirates of the area. She entered the room where she heard the clatter and found her husband sitting on the ground re-arranging the broken pieces. He seemed to be entranced.

"Guybrush, what are you doing?" Elaine enquired.

"This crest seems familiar," he replied, still rearranging the broken shards.

Guybrush had a fear of porcelain ever since Elaine had known him. He didn't know where his phobia came from and he'd been getting better at dealing with his fear in recent years. He found his phobia hard to fully overcome when he didn't know where the phobia had started in the first place.

"This crest, it's the Woodsbury family crest," Guybrush told her. He looked confused at how he knew this piece of information.

"Yes, it is. Elliot Woodsbury gave the dinner set to me. She is wanting to set up trade with our islands," Elaine replied.

"Sorry for breaking the dinner set," Guybrush apologized.

"It's fine, Guybrush. It probably would've stayed in storage taking up space. Come to bed; we'll clean this up in the evening."

The birds were chirping and the sun was just rising over the cliff face which the mansion was perched atop. Guybrush rearranged a few more pieces of broken porcelain before following his wife up the stairs.

\- Monkey Island -

The young man looked out at the black clouds and the rough ocean before him and gulped nervously. This was the first time he'd ever been away from his mother and on his own. He was the youngest child in his family, with there being a large age difference between himself and his older brother and sister. He was always the younger annoying kid brother whom his older brother Charles picked on and the brother whom his older sister Elliot doted on. His father didn't treat him the same as his older brother and was happy for him to stay at home with his mother and learn how to knit, sew, cook, and do arts and crafts and other activities his brother Charles called girly. The tasks that would normally be taught to his sister, which she had no interested in. He enjoyed spending time with his mother and doing all those things. Nevertheless, he also wanted to spend time with his father and learn how to sword fight, shoot a rifle, go out to sea. Spending time with his brother, sister, and father with what they did best. He wanted to follow in his father's family name, and make a name for himself.

The ship lurched forward, and he almost fell overboard. He stumbled backwards away from the edge of the ship, making his way below the deck.

"That is a smart choice young master," said one of the men who worked for his as he went below deck.

He hated being young master. He wanted to be a somebody, but a different somebody: an adventurer who got to do exciting things and have interesting stories to come home and tell his mother while enjoying a cup of tea and sewing or doing a craft, or maybe a pirate hunter like his father and bring justice to the world around them. He dreamed of finding the perfect wife whom he could adventure with, instead of the sweet girl his parents wanted him to marry. Meredith was a nice girl, but he found her boring to talk with all the time. Plus Meredith didn't see him as a man, she saw him as one of the girls. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life with her. All the girls on the Island saw him as one of the girls, he wasn't a girl. He didn't want to be a girl, even if he did look good in dresses. His mother often used him as a model when making new clothes for his older sister Elliot when she wasn't home since they were both the same build. Even if she was home, Elliot wasn't one for dresses and rarely dressed up if she could avoid it.

He went down to the cargo bay and sat down, hoping that the lurching would stop soon. He'd been wishing for adventure, but not this. He was beginning to get scared as the lurching got worse instead of better. He could no longer hear the men and woman on the deck above the waves crashing into the ship and the rumbling of the storm. Despite his fear, he managed to fall asleep.

The young man sat up with a start when he was crushed by one of the boxes in the cargo bay. With the lurching of the ship, it had managed to come free. He tried to push himself free but found he was pinned. The ship lurched again, dragging him with the box he was underneath. He shouted out, but wasn't heard by the crew still on the deck above.

He held out his arms to protect his face as a crate full of tea sets, dinner sets and decorative vases and bowls fell on top of him. His mother wouldn't be happy; he, his mother and his grandmother had made them all by hand. They were to be traded on the other islands. He looked at the broken pieces of porcelain all around him. The ship lurched again and even more creates broke open. The once carefully wrapped breakables were breaking everywhere, flooding the cargo hold with shattered porcelain. He was unable to protect himself as another crate managed to fall on his head. His last vision was of the porcelain around him, and the cargo deck flooding with water.

\- Monkey Island -

Elaine awoke to a cold bed. Getting up she wandered down the stairs and found her husband gluing the dinner set back together.

"Guybrush, you don't have to do that," Elaine told him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I can always get another one tomorrow."

"Did you know they are all crafted by hand," Guybrush told her, "to add a more personal touch to the whole process. Selecting the best raw materials to make the porcelain, crushing and cleaning is done with hand tools to form the mixture. They are  pressed into molds by hand. Next, they are heated on a low temperature to reduce shrinking, then glazed and painted all with the most careful strokes before they are placed into a kiln. Everyone is then checked to make sure they are to the highest standard, all before being carefully packaged to be transported and traded to the other islands."

"How does someone who has a porcelain phobia know how to make porcelain?" Elaine asked.

"I think I used to make porcelain," Guybrush replied. "I had a dream last night, I was on a ship transporting crates of porcelain. There was a terrible storm; I almost fell overboard, so went below deck. The crates, they fell on top of me, breaking open, pinning me down. Then the ship started to sink, and I was drowning in sea water with broken pieces of porcelain all around me."

"And then?" Elaine prompted.

"And then I woke up. I think it was a memory, a memory of how I ended up on Melee Island," Guybrush told her, looking at Elaine with a haunted look. "Elaine, I don't want to remember. I was happy not knowing my past. Now I'm confused, I don't know who I am anymore. When I woke up on Melee Island, I was so certain of two things, my name and what I wanted to be. Both were wrong; I still cannot remember my name, but I am certain it is not Guybrush Threepwood. I like who I am now, I like being Guybrush Threepwood. My parents would be ashamed of me if they know that I am me, even though I still don't know who they are or even if they are still alive."

"Guybrush, everything is going to be alright, I'm here." Elaine soothed him. "Nothing about your past is going to change our relationship."

"Are you sure?" Guybrush asked.

"Yes," Elaine replied.

"Even if I told you my dream as a child was to be a pirate hunter, not a pirate?" Guybrush confirmed.

"Yes, Guybrush, I love you, everything about you. You really wanted to be a pirate hunter?" Elaine asked.

"In my dream, I wanted to be a pirate hunter like my father. The trip was my first time on my own."

Elaine held her husband close; he was shaking in her arm's visibly afraid of his dream, afraid of the past he could not remember, a past that had never concerned him before. For Guybrush, he'd never been concerned about not knowing his past, his age, his anything. It was just something he didn't have, and that was that. He was always looking to the future instead of lingering in the past, a future that they shared together.


	2. Two

Elaine had left Guybrush gluing the dinner set back together once again—he'd become obsessed with the thing. She'd gone for a walk to the lookout, the side of the Island on which Guybrush had been shipwrecked. Several ships had been sunk in the storm that Guybrush had survived. Up at the lookout was the blind watchman who was technically retired and had been for many years. He still insisted on coming to his old job every day. The young lookout who'd taken over his job was looking out at the ocean with a bored expression, he didn't enjoy the work as much as the old man.

Beyond the men, Elaine saw the older woman she'd spoken with that morning. She approached and said, "Hello, Ms. Woodsbury, how's your stay been so far?"

"For a pirate town, it's been rather pleasant," Elliot Woodsbury replied.

"Is it wise to be out without a guard?" Elaine asked the other woman. She seemed to have experience and wasn't at all afraid of the pirate island she was on, unlike several of the merchants she'd dealt with in the past.

"I used to be a pirate hunter Governor Marley," Elliot replied. "Don't worry, I'm not here to hunt pirates. I gave that up a long time ago to take over my mother's family business. I leave the pirate hunting business to my older brother."

Elliot looked towards the sea again, looking lost. Elaine put a comforting hand on the other woman's shoulder and didn't say anything for several moments. She was starting to get a sinking suspicion that Elliot was related to Guybrush somehow. He'd mentioned wanting to be a pirate hunter like his father and coming from a merchant family who made and sold porcelain. The woman before her was the same build as her husband with the same blond hair as Guybrush. That is where the similarities ended between the two.

"Ms. Woodsbury, did you have a brother who as disappeared twenty-six years ago?" Elaine asked the other woman. That made her feel old. Twenty-six years ago Guybrush washed up on the beach and into her life. They'd been married for nineteen years.

"How did you know that?" Elliot asked, looking a little haunted.

"We had a storm off the coast of the Island that year, a major one with many ships sinking. A young man washed up on the beach. Blond hair, blue eyes and no memory of where he came from before his ship sunk. He's been here ever since. He accidently broke the dinner set with your family crest on it that you gave me. It's stirred up a few memories, and he's been gluing the dinner set back together ever since. He's concerned that his family will not accept him how as he is now."

"Who is he now?" Elliot asked.

"Guybrush Threepwood," Elaine replied.

"Isn't that your husband's name? The famous pirate who defeated the pirate ghost LeChuck?" Elliot asked.

"Yes, he's my husband," Elaine replied, wondering how Elliot would take the news that they were possible sisters-in-law.

Elliot started laughing. "My father must have known; he ordered my brother Charles and me to stay away from Threepwood when his name first started coming up. We thought it was because he was just a wannabe pirate that would disappear like so many others. When Threepwood became bigger, he still wouldn't let up go after him. It never even occurred to me that he might be my missing brother. He was a pirate that no one had heard of him before he defeated LeChuck the first time. My father's retired from being a pirate hunter now. Can I meet your husband?"

Elaine nodded. Guybrush may not want to know his own past; she, on the other hand, had always wanted to know who he'd been before, if he had family that was missing him. She didn't have any family for a long time before Guybrush became a part of her family. Her parents had died when she was young and her grandfather had gone missing, presumed dead until Guybrush had found him also suffering from amnesia.

"Mom, I promise I'll be back," the young man said to the woman standing at the dock. "It's just a simple trade on a pirate free Island. We're not even going through pirate infested water. It's not like I'm doing something dangerous like Charlie and Ellie."

"It's just that I worry about you," his mother smoothed his hair. "It's the first time you'll be away from home. Away from me. You're my baby. I worry about you. You're so clumsy, what happens if you accidently hurt yourself?"

"I'm not a baby any more mom, I'm an adult. It's time that I left home and explore what's out there. Clumsiness has an advantage; I can now trip without hurting myself when I fall."

"Just be careful and if you don't like the adventure, you can always come home. Nothing wrong with wanting to stay in one place and not out on the open sea," his mother assured him.

"I'll be fine. Grandma can't do this forever—someone needs to take over from her in traveling to the different islands and setting up trades. I'll never be a pirate hunter like Dad, Charlie, and Elliot. I can do this and take over from grandma," the young man insisted.

"I love you, don't forget that," his mother pulled him into one last hug.

"I know, Mom, I love you too. I'll be back before you know it, I promise." He returned the hug before he walked to the ship that would take him away from his mother for the first time in his life.

Elaine rushed to her husband who was sitting on the floor crying over the dinner set. Elliot stood in the doorway looking at the man who was openly crying. This was meant to be one of the most fearsome pirates and here he was crying like her younger brother, her clumsy caring brother. How could someone as caring as him become a pirate?

"Guybrush, what's wrong?" Elaine asked.

"I broke my promise to my mom," he turned into her arms. "I promised her I would come home before she knew it."

Elaine just held him close, whispering soothing words, telling him that it wasn't his fault that he forgot. That he couldn't control the weather or what happened to him. That he was lucky to be alive, even if he'd survived with his memory less then intact.

"You really are Ollie," Elliot said from the doorway.

Guybrush looked up at the woman standing in the doorway. His face red and his eyes puffy like Elliot had seen so many times before.

"Mom?" Guybrush said to the person standing in the doorway.

"Try again, I'm not mom," Elliot said with a chuckle. She always resented that she'd grown up to look like her mother.

"Ellie?" Guybush asked sounding unsure of the name.

Elliot nodded, tears now coming from her own eyes.

"You're wearing a dress," Guybrush tilted his head a smile reaching his lips.

"I took over from grandmother when she passed away. I needed to look a bit more professional," Elliot sighed. 

"Will they hate me now? Are they still alive?" Guybrush asked.

"Mom and dad are still alive and well. I have a feeling dad already knows, and he doesn't hate you. He even ordered Charlie and me to stay away from Threepwood. Mother has never given up that you're still alive. I know they'd both like to see you again, Ollie."

"Is Ollie my name?" Guybrush asked.

"Short for Oliver."

Guybrush made a face, he didn't really like the name. Maybe that was why he'd forgotten what his name had been because he'd never liked it to begin with.

Elliot walked the few steps, fell to the ground and threw her arms around her baby brother. "I'm glad you're alive."

"Now I wish I could remember more about you," Guybrush admitted.


	3. Three

"Do you remember this at all?" Elaine asked as they followed after Elliot towards the Woodsbury family home.

"It's coming back, a girl my parents wanted me to marry lived in that house. We were close friends, but I never wanted to marry her or any of the other girls from here. I remember that much." Guybrush stopped walking and was looking at Elliot in confusion.

Elaine encouraged her husband to tell her what he could remember.

"Um, Ellie, isn't this the house?" Guybrush asked his sister. "Or am I just remembering wrong. Or have they moved?"

"I was just testing you, congratulations, you passed," Elliot told him, a grin plastering her face.

"If I didn't remember, what were you going to do? Have us walk in circles around the island?" Guybrush asked.

"Yes, until I grew bored," Elliot replied.

Guybrush was nervous as his sister opened the door to his family home. Elaine squeezed his hand reassuring him that everything would be alright.

If there was any doubt that this was Guybrush's biological family, it was quickly pushed aside. In the family room were dozens of family portraits and one of them was Guybrush looking just how he looked when he'd washed up on Melee Island.

"Ellie, I wasn't expecting you home, and you brought guests," Mrs. Woodsbury said to her only daughter, pulling her into a hug.

Mr. Woodsbury stood up and stood directly in front of Guybrush. Guybrush gulped, nervous as to what his father would say.

The pirate hunter pulled the pirate into a hug. "If you told me, I would've let you, son. She's a lovely lady, that wife of yours. One of the decent pirates. Is that why you became a pirate?"

"Pirate!" Mrs. Woodsbury stood up seeing that the young man was her missing, presumed dead son. "Oliver Ulysses Woodsbury, you left your family, made us all sick thinking that you were dead to become a pirate!"

It looked like Guybrush had remembered something—he still had the same middle name.

Guybrush gave his father and mother a sheepish grin. "Ah no, I actually forgot everything. It's all still fuzzy, like it didn't actually happen to me, that I have someone else's memories. I've remembered flashes during the past, like the name of Charles. It's only because of Elliot that I remembered where I came from and who you are."

"I had no idea you didn't remember," his father admitted. "If I did, I would've tracked you down. You always were so happy when I did see you."

"You knew my Ollie was still alive and didn't tell me!" his mother screeched at his father.

"I knew it would break your heart if you knew he left to become a pirate," Mr. Woodsbury admitted.

 

Guybrush's parents had settled down and were filling him in on his life that he could barely remember.

"How long have you two been married?" Mrs. Woodsbury asked.

"Nineteen years, Mrs. Woodsbury," Elaine replied.

_ " _ Call me Dorothy. Do you have any children?

"No children," Guybrush replied.

"Why ever not? I'd like to be a grandmother, and you two aren't exactly getting younger," Dorothy pointed out. "It doesn't look like I will get any from your brother or sister."

"It wasn't a choice. I can't have children, LeChuck made certain of that. Since I refused all his advances and would not be having his children, he made sure I couldn't have anyone's child," Elaine explained.

"Nasty piece of work, that pirate," Oliver senior shook his head. "I was proud that my son was the one who defeated him and not just once, multiple times. Think LeChuck's gone forever?"

"With how much LeChuck dabbled in voodoo, probably not," Guybrush replied. "I'll be there to kick him in the butt next time he shows his face in this world."

Guybrush and Elaine filled his parents in on his adventures, how they actually happened and not the second-hand information that everyone else heard. Dorothy was sharing stories about Guybrush's childhood. Said pirate felt relieved that his parents accepted him as who he was now, even going as far as calling him" Guybrush instead of Ollie.


End file.
